She Had Loved Them Both
by Lautari
Summary: They were two halves of the same whole and she needed them both...Sif-centric piece


_Just taking another swing at dipping my toes in the Marvel universe. Read and review! Enjoy!_

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She had loved them both. She had been a lover to both. They were two halves of the same whole and she needed them both.

Two thousand years of youth was a long time to have only one lover. She had only ever been held in the arms of a prince though. She had never lain in the bed of a man that was not covered in furs or royal silk, even in fields of war. They shared her, the two princes, and they knew, though a word was never spoken about it between them. They shared her without fighting or claim, though both sets of eyes, green and blue, would follow her at feasts and on the battlefield.

Thor had been the first. As the oldest, he had the right. He took her on a summer evening so many hundreds of years before when they had been so young. Whispers had circulated since they had been small children that they were to be together. It was accepted that Thor would take her virginity, even expected. He did. After the haze of pain had passed and her legs relaxed around his waist, he had propped himself up on his elbows and began moving inside her and had smiled and brought her fingers to his lips in respect and acknowledgement of what she had given to him. Everyone else had known too. She had entered the great hall after and was nodded and bowed to as the woman she was. Loki had hid a small smile behind his chalice and nodded to her when their eyes met.

That was also the summer he had taken away her golden hair.

She had seethed over the loss of what she considered her crowning glory and it was winter before she spoke to the second prince again. He had restored her hair to a rich raven hue similar to his own that she had come to embrace with pride. Where she had once wasted so much time on silly vanity over her golden curls, she now simply allowed them to fall down her back or be pulled tight into a simple pony tail. Little else was needed with a hair color as rare as hers among the Aesir. Her reputation and hair proceded her, and where she went she was met with recognition.

She had swallowed her pride that winter's night and gone to his chambers to thank him for her hair and the lesson and had ended up with her skirts hiked up around her waist and her fingers tangled in his own dark locks while his tongue licked the small canyon between her breasts that were exposed over the top of her dress. She moaned as he tugged the dress down over her shoulders for more access and whispered that if he had been jealous all he had to do was ask her to his bed, not make her hair fall out.

He caught her chin in his hand and made her look him in the eyes before he whispered, _"I will never ask you for anything."_

And he never did.

Thor would grasp her small fingers and kiss them with a question in his eyes, ever the prince. He would whisper_, "My lady"_ and lead her to his bed. They never spoke in the aftermath, the familiarity between them never needing words. Thor would just curl around her protectively before drifting off. Their bodies knew exactly what the other needed and he would kick all the furs and blankets to the floor and so nothing could be between them and their bodies were bare to one another and his eyes would rove over her body, heavy lidded with desire. He loved a woman's body, would spend hours working hers over, and she knew he could lose himself without having to worry about hurting her. She would watch his face in the middle of her own throes of passion and he would just slip away into his own pleasure and she couldn't help but feel smug satisfaction knowing she was the one woman in the kingdom that could pull the prince on top of her and take it. She couldn't help but hope that when he was in bed with the mortal he thought about the centuries before, with her, when he could mount a woman of his own kind without her wincing in pain.

She knew Loki would never be satisfied with containing himself, holding back. There was something very primitive in his lovemaking…something very predatory about their courtship. He never asked her to bed. He had just expected her to be there. He would almost stalk her in the great hall in the evening before disappearing to his chambers to wait for her. And when she came to him he would pull the furs and the blankets over both their heads and block out the world. His silver tongue would murmur in her ear, and though she couldn't recall what was said now, it would make her smile against his cheek before she slipped down his body, deeper into the bed. Thor would insist that she didn't need to do it, but Loki loved it and didn't pretend he didn't. He laughed and told her she loved it too. Who wouldn't love watching their lover moan underneath them? Her face would flush, hidden behind the black veil of her hair and her only response would be to take him in her mouth and make him moan. They would whisper long into the night in the aftermath and they would lounge naked in his bed while he showed her new tricks and spells to mesmerize her. He slept little, but when he did he would fall asleep on top of her protectively, claiming.

Thor had been her first, but Loki had been her last.

On the eve of Thor's coronation she had slipped to Loki's chambers and he had met her at the door with desperate urgency. They both knew time was growing slim for them. She would spend the coronation night with the crown prince and after soon after she would be wed to him. They had known this in the long years they had been in each other's arms. That night had been a night of goodbye, though at the time none of them had known how real the goodbye was.

She never shared Thor's or Loki's bed again. Thor was banished to Midgard after the stunt on Jotunheim and she had blamed Loki. She had raged against him in private, throwing his jealousy in his face and he had caught her hand violently when she went to slap him and had hissed that he had never wanted Thor's throne._ "Just everything else he didn't deserve."_

She had trembled under his gaze, but had jerked away and told him he was no King.

"_And you are no lady…Sif."_

The common use of her name that he always addressed her with now sounded like an insult instead of the familiar endearment it had always been before. She had walked away from him for the last time. Loki fell from the Bifrost before she couldsee him again. She had wanted to go to Thor to comfort him and share grief, but something in their relationship had been lost on Jotunheim and it had been replaced by Jane Foster on Midgard.

They both visited the ruined bridge in the aftermath for the same reason: To look for someone they could no longer see. Heimdall's farseeing gaze could bring Thor comfort in a way she couldn't, but for her the Gatekeeper could offer no relief. Loki was lost to them, and it was only when Loki was brought back from Midgard in chains that she realized he was truly gone. Her Loki, the Loki they all knew, no longer existed.

She had loved them both. But she had only been in love with one.


End file.
